The Affair of Illya and Me
by lilidelafield
Summary: A WHAT-IF CHALLENGE story. The prompt was: What if Illya hadn't broken it off with Marion Raven? What if he couldn't live without her? What would happen then? This is the tale of what did happen then, in Marion's own words . . .


WHAT IF ILLYA HADN'T BROKEN IT OFF WITH MARION? WHAT IF HE COULDN'T LIVE WITHOUT HER? WHAT WOULD HAPPEN THEN?

 **The Affair of Illya and Me.**

When I first met Illya Kuryakin, I thought he was a strange mixture. A robot in so many ways…I mean, Napoleon Solo left him in my apartment to bodyguard me, and he sat himself down on a stood beside the door and folded his arms like some kind of night club bouncer…I might have thought it a joke, except that there was something about him, a coldness in his eyes that sent a shiver down my spine. A man I wouldn't want to cross.

I remember offering to play him a record and he made some comment about my probably not having anything he would like. I wondered then what kind of a woman he thought me to be? Did he think I would be swooning over crooners? There are a few crooners among my record collection of course, but they were my mother's, and after she died, father brought them over here with him when he came to live with me. I am much more into proper music than that. Real jazz music that I can lay back and close my eyes and be transported somewhere. When I got no response from the icicle by the door, I shrugged and decided to please myself. Somehow, it made him come alive, and I found that he really does know about jazz music. Strange, with him being Russian. I somehow never pictured jazz music making it behind the iron curtain. Oh well, What do I know?

Still, I suppose that was the start of it. We did seem to click, but during that mission…you know, the first one where we were looking for the men who murdered my father, I found myself becoming more and more intrigued by my small Russian Iceberg. I knew he had a heart…I could tell by the impassioned way he'd talked about his music…but on duty he was back to being that chilly iceberg again.

I hate what he does for a living. I mean, I know it is important, and someone has to do it, I suppose, but it makes him act so unlike himself. On duty, he is cold and calculating, and dangerous. He is a crack shot with that gun of his. I hate guns! I hate them, I hate them, I hate them! I hate that he carries one all the time wherever he is. Even when we have gone out for a meal together, I have been uncomfortably aware all the time that he has been wearing a gun under his jacket the whole time. When I once asked him if he could please leave it behind for once, he told me that it was regulations. As an UNCLE agent, he had a lot of enemies, and he needed to be able to defend himself at all times, and defend me too. THAT made me even more nervous.

We started seeing each other rather a lot, and I became very fond of him. I just adore those eyes of his…especially when he is being manipulative. He puts on that puppy-dog expression and my heart melts every time. I could have fallen head-over-heels in love with him so easily…but I kept my mind on that gun of his, and all the things that could happen, and I managed to put the brakes on my emotions before they went too far. Or so I thought. What I hadn't realized was how much Illya had fallen for me. I certainly didn't try in that regard. Rather the reverse in fact. It wasn't until one evening, when he came to my place, and fell asleep on the sofa listening to Mozart whilst I cooked him dinner that I knew he was in love with me. I won't go into details of what he said, but he was talking and mumbling in his sleep. No man is responsible for his dreams, so at first, I just grinned to myself and prepared to ignore it. Then he screamed out "Marion, please don't go!" right out of the blue, and started sobbing in his sleep.

I was truly shaken, and it was a minute or two before I was calm enough to awaken him. He sprang up, clearly still haunted by whatever he had been seeing in his dream, and clutched at me for a few moments as though afraid I was going to jump out of the window.

I asked him;

"Illya, are you alright?"

"I dreamed that you were going away, Marion." He replied.

"But you were crying, Illya. I've never heard you cry before."

That's when he confessed that he was deeply in love with me. I didn't know what to say. I was excited and afraid at the same time. Then I remembered something Napoleon had happened to say months ago, about section two agents never getting too close to anyone because of being forbidden to marry. I asked him how was he going to get around his no marriage rule?

Then we had our first row.

He was quite happy at the thought of our living together, me at his place, or he at mine, but my whole being rebelled at the thought.

Don't get me wrong, I fancy him rotten, really. I always did. But I was raised to believe that one should marry before becoming intimate with a man, so living with him as his wife but without being married to him was completely against everything I had been taught a child. There might come a time when it would be socially acceptable, but even then, I am not sure that I would ever be okay with it.

And so, we went our separate ways. I saw and heard nothing from Illya Nickovitch Kuryakin for almost a year. I cannot say that I had forgotten him in that time, because who could possibly forget those puppyish blue eyes, that gorgeous long blond hair, Or that neat little bum? I decided that the best way to help him forget me would be to disappear. So, I sold the New York apartment that I loved, and moved to London, where I could pursue my photographic career.

Eleven months later I had a rap on the door. Napoleon Solo stood there.

"What on earth are you doing here?" I asked him., "and how did you find me?"

"I work for UNCLE. We can find a little THRUSH bird, it wasn't hard to find you."

"Why are you here?"

"I am here to bring you back home to New York, Marion."

I shook my head.

"No way Napoleon Solo. I am going nowhere with you. You'll only get me shot!"

"Have I so far?"

"Why do you want me to return to New York? And what does it have to do with UNCLE where I am living?"

Solo looked really serious then.

"Marion, it is Illya. Do you have any idea what your disappearance did to him?"

I shook my head, but my heart was pounding.

"I had to leave him, Napoleon. He couldn't marry me, I couldn't live in sin with him…it is against my whole upbringing. I was hoping that to get out of sight would help him forget me more quickly."

"Well it didn't work, Marion. Ever since you left Illya has been unable to focus properly on his job. You are all he ever thinks about. He cries out your name in his sleep every night, five or six times. He is desperately in love with you, he can't think of anything else but finding you and being with you again."

"He could have left UNCLE if he was that desperate to be with me." I said, feeling uncomfortable and slightly defensive. Napoleon shook his head.

"No. If Illya leaves the UNCLE of his own accord before his fortieth birthday, he will be automatically deported back to his homeland, where he would probably be shot for failing to fulfil his duties. He is, on the other hand, on the verge of being kicked out of Section Two. If that happens, the same thing will likely happen. His homeland will recall him and put him in front of the firing squad."

"You mean, Illya's life in the USA is contingent upon his serving section two for the UNCLE?" I asked, shocked. Solo nodded.

"Then, that no marriage rule is particularly hard, isn't it? Given that he really seems to have absolutely no choice about his life at all?"

Napoleon nodded.

"Exactly. The last thing he needed was you to vanish off the face of the earth."

"So, if finding me was so easy, why have you left it almost a year before coming after me to explain all of this?"

Solo finally smiled.

"Because Illya is as stubborn as you are. He understands the reason you left, and he appreciated that you were trying to do the right thing by him, at least in your eyes. He never realized the fact that he couldn't live without you until he faced the fact of never seeing you again. I'm tired of hearing him crying in his sleep every night when we have to share hotel rooms. He's a shadow of the man he was Marion, the better half of him is here, with you."

I grabbed for my hankerchief.

"But how will my returning help, Napoleon? I can't live with him, and if he is not allowed to marry, it will only torture us both more, won't it?"

Napoleon grabbed my shoulders.

"Look, perhaps we can sort something out, but there is something more urgent. I came over here on a fighter-jet, and I want you to come back with me the same way. Illya is sick, and he is…he is not fighting it. He looks like giving up. Marion, he usually responds to me, but he isn't any more. If anyone can get him to respond and start to fight, it's you. You have to come and make him fight his sickness."

Suddenly, a lump appeared in my throat so huge that I couldn't swallow it. My breath was caught in my throat and I found it difficult to take a breath. When it finally came, it emerged as a loud sob that took both of us by surprise. I snatched my keys from the hall table and my handbag from the hook.

"I'll come right now."

We flew back across the Atlantic in a jet fighter plane that scared the wits out of me I will admit, but it got us back to New York in half the time a regular flight would have taken. I was rushed to that familiar tailor's shop in the west 40s, given a visitor's badge and then hustled down the lift to the medical level. Illya was in a room on his own, being carefully monitored by a nurse who never moved from his side.

Illya looked like a corpse already. His skin, usually pale enough was almost grey. His pulse rates and breathing were being closely monitored. Illya was sweating profusely, water-droplets beading on his face and torso as though he had just stepped out of a shower; but he was shivering severely.

"What is wrong with him?" I breathed, staring, shocked at the sight of my courageous Russian iceberg like this.

"He was injured in the line of duty. A post-operative infection…a common problem with operations like his…but he is not responding to any of the medication. He's dying."

And so they had dragged me in as a last resort. Illya couldn't die. He couldn't. Seeing him there so still, looking almost dead already I knew then that I loved him back. The thought of losing him galvanized me. I dropped down beside him and grabbed his hand.

"Illya, it's me. Its Marion. I'm sorry I left you. I was scared, but I'm back. I'm back Illya. It's me, Marion. I'm here and I won't leave you again!"

I kissed him full on the lips, running my fingers through his hair. For a full minute, it was like kissing a corpse…there was no response. Then suddenly I could feel him starting to respond, his mouth moving in answer to mine. I pulled away slightly. His eyes were open. He was so weak, so, so weak, I wept to see him like that. He weakly wiped a tear from my eye. His lips moved. He mouthed my name, but was too weak to say it aloud. I cried more.

"I'm here my love." I whispered to him. "You have to fight this my darling, because I can't bear to lose you now. I'm sorry I ran away from you, but I am here for you. I won't run away again, I promise. Just promise to get well."

He nodded weakly, and his eyes closed again. The nurse smiled at me.

"His readings have all jumped. You've done well for him, Miss Raven. If you will give us half an hour, you may return and sit with him for as long as you wish."

I nodded.

Napoleon Solo then took me up to see Alexander Waverly, who frowned at me. He remonstrated with me for doing such damage to one of his best agents by stealing his heart and running away back to England with it. I explained to Waverly why I had gone, but he waved my explanation aside.

"I quite understand young lady." He said with a twinkle in his eye. "I was also young myself once upon a time. That is why I have been rather more patient with Mister Kuryakin than I might otherwise have been. I know from personal experience what that young man has been going through ever since you left. So, now you are back, what are you going to do?"

I took a deep breath. I have always been somewhat outspoken, but I wanted Waverly on my side, not to throw me out.

"I can't leave him again Mister Waverly, but I can't live in sin with him either. If you won't let him get married whilst he's in section two, and he can't leave section two either, we will both just have to wait. Won't we?"

"How much do you care for him?"

What was this? Looking the old man in the eye I answered him.

"I came here with Mister Solo without eve packing a bag, and I have just promised Illya that I won't leave him again. What do you think, sir?"

"Would you be willing to move straight back to New York, and accept a job role within the UNCLE?"

I nodded without blinking.

"Of course. Do you have a job role in mind for me?"

"Yes. Same job you do now, but within Sections Four and Seven here at UNCLE you could be a great help. You'd be given full training in anything that falls outside of your experience. Starting today if you wish?"

"Um…okay…at least I can see Illya at work when he's not on missions."

Waverly glanced at Solo and smiled slightly.

"Mister Kuryakin is in a very difficult position considering the limitations that his own people have placed upon him. If he can remain alive in section two until he naturally retires from the field at forty years of age, he will have fulfilled their conditions, and he will be able to stay here in the States indefinitely. But until then…"

I raised my eyebrows.

"You could bend the rules for him?"

"Not for an innocent, no. But If you work for UNCLE, you would be under extra protection. The `no marriage' rule can be adapted in the case of Illya if he were interested in marrying an employee of UNCLE."

I stared at the old man, stunned, shocked, pleased and scared all at the same time.

"If I agree to work for you, you will let Illya marry me? When he gets better?"

The old man sucked his pipe.

"I will."

I surprised Waverly and myself by jumping up and giving him a big hug, and then Solo as well.

"I suppose as Illya's partner, I will have to be stuck with you a lot more, too?"

"Afraid so. I am the one who keeps him alive when we're on a mission."

"If you can keep him alive for me, Mister Solo, then I can put up with you as much as Illya wants me to. Thank you, Mister Waverly! Can I go and talk to him now?"

OOOOOOOOO

Illya started to get well after that, and as soon as he was declared fit and well by medical, just three weeks later, he and I were married at the city hall with Napoleon as our best man. We went to England on our honeymoon, partly to clear out my London flat and have my stuff sent to our new place in New York, and partly to explore parts of England neither of us had seen. We went hiking across Dartmoor, we camped in the New Forest and paddled in the sea on Bournemouth Beach.

We live in an apartment close to the one I had lived in before with my father, but on the top floor with a huge balcony that looks out over the city and the river. The place has two separate bedrooms, so we have a place for Napoleon to sleep in when he comes.

I love my new job at UNCLE, and only wish I could have done this a year ago. I have my new job, my new apartment in New York, and best of all, my new husband. Illya Nickovitch, my best friend, my lover, my whole world. I am Marion Raven Kuryakina. And I have never been happier . . .


End file.
